Gingerbread hamentaschen

I grew up in a very Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This has spoiled me for life, because I have never quite gotten used to the idea that one cannot just pop around the corner and get the most authentic and delicious baked goods of the Jewish persuasion at a moment's notice. Of course, that is no longer as true as once it was, even back home -- the serious bagels of dear old Bageland, for example, are no more, replaced by the puffy pseudo-bagels of Breugger's and their kin -- but it is even less true in Maryland. So accommodations must be made.

My Jewishness, such as it is, is partial (it comes to me only through my mother's father) and cultural, not religious. The extent of my experience with actual observance is limited to a couple of trips to the shul with my antique babysitter when I was four or five. All I remember is that the lovely old ladies doted on me and gave me coffee candies. Later I went to an after-school program at the JCC, where I learned the blessings for snacks. Thank you for the graham crackers, King of the Universe, and challah on Fridays! And there was some garland-making for the Sukkot sukkah, and plasticine menorah-crafting, and so on.

But here it is about to be Purim, a holiday I have never celebrated, though it sounds like fun, with the noisemakers and the dressing up and the whole All-of-a-Kind Family wholesome carnivalesque cavalcade of festivities. The point, however, is that just knowing Purim is there is enough to make me want hamentaschen. I am a shameless hussy when it comes to holiday foods, and I don't care who knows it. Hamentaschen, of course, are the traditional cookies of Purim, the three-cornered numbers that come filled with fruit or poppy seeds or whatever outlandish and nouveau thing you can get away with. I have always been fondest of apricot.

On eGullet, I was exposed to the entrancing idea of gingerbread-apricot hamentaschen. The recipe is this: take your favorite recipe for gingerbread men and use it for the dough. Roll it out and cut circles with a cutter, or make balls of dough and flatten them into thin disks. Fill with apricot filling, which you can make from reconstituted dried apricots or cooked down jam, but I was lazy and used the Solo brand canned filling. It's good and it's classic, and I felt that this time, bringing gingerbread into the picture was daring enough. Fold the sides in to make a triangle, leaving space in the middle, and pinch to seal. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, until they are baked but still a bit soft.

I am not a practiced hamentaschen folder and pincher, so the results at my hands are a rather homely collection of lopsided things. But they taste divine, so I am not complaining.

Posted by redfox at March 06, 2004 06:39 PM (recipes) | Comments (3)

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